Anonymous wrote:I have children at both.

My daughter attends Sidwell, boys attend STA.

Admin at STA is night and day stronger than at Sidwell. Sidwell's HOS is very focused on prestige and influence, and gives preferential treatment to the well-connected. So much for Quaker values.

STA boys are encouraged to be supportive of one another, character education is integrated into the curriculum, chapel services where boys lead and speak encourage them to think about values. Sidwell does character education, too, but it seems more focused on wokeness.

Both schools have bright, intense students. Both are high pressure, but STA has more moderating elements. Faculty are very engaged and caring at STA; they are invested in the success of every student. Sidwell teachers on the whole seem more detached. At Sidwell if a child needs help, it's their job to reach out to the teachers. At STA if a child needs help, the teacher might reach out to the child.

Sidwell students are supportive but they almost seem to glorify suffering and try to outdo each other in all-nighters and other all-out efforts to achieve. STA has highly competitive kids, too, but you're not supposed to show the sweat. The boys are expected to be self-deprecating about achievements and to help others. Bragging about grades is a no-no. Everyone excels in something and they are encouraged to appreciate each others' strengths.

There are some very conservative families at STA. There are some very woke families at Sidwell. The conservative families at STA are quiet about it. The woke families at Sidwell are very loud about it.

Both communities have many normal people who are welcoming. On the whole, politics and wokeness is less in-your-face at STA, because there's an effort to build community across political beliefs, which is not as true at Sidwell. There is more diversity of thought at STA, because there are few conservative families at Sidwell. I'm not sure how comfortable they are at STA either, as the majority of the school despite rumors to the contrary skews moderate and liberal. However, there is a careful restraint at STA around politics, with the exception of a few people on both sides.

College counseling is 1000X better at STA. Read some of the past threads on the DCUM issues with college counseling at Sidwell. It would never have been allowed to deteriorate to that extent at STA, because the school is better managed and the morale among faculty/admin is higher. I've heard STA teachers are the best paid among private schools in the DC area. Most of the teachers seem genuinely happy and that's reflected in their work with the students.

Both schools are excellent schools. As a parent I'm happier with STA. IMO it's better in terms of overall student experience, parent community, and administrative stability and strength. If you send your child to Sidwell, hire a private admissions counselor as soon as your child enters 9th grade.

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
Thanks for all your thoughts!

Verdict is in and my son is choosing STA.

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
Thanks for all your thoughts!

Verdict is in and my son is choosing STA.

Anonymous wrote:NP. What I'd say about Sidwell and self-advocacy is that they really want to avoid well-meaning helicopter parents who are contacting teachers to advocate for their children. That level of parent involvement is really not enjoyable for anyone. In my experience, teachers do proactively reach out to students, and students are encouraged to reach out to teachers. Some students, especially in the 9th grade, lack the self-confidence to do that. But by 10th, most seem to have grown comfortable. By the same token, some teachers are great at communicating with students, while some others are not good at it, and so students must be more proactive. For the most part, teachers seem very warm and approachable. My high schooler, who is not particularly outgoing, nevertheless has friendly relations with several of them.

On politics, I don't really know or care too much what the politics of other parents are. By the time your kids are in high school, there really aren't too many situations where you'll be having deep personal conversations with lots of other parents such that you'd learn their politics. I certainly had more of those conversations with other parents when my kids were in younger grade, but by high school the kids are arranging their own social schedules and the parents are mostly just drivers. So for the STA poster who claimed to know down to the percentage the politics of other families, I think that's either a holdover from younger grades or else a bit of exaggeration. Most of the kids are fairly outgoing about their progressive stripes, as the young are apt to be, but I also hear about more Conservative students so they clearly are not afraid to voice their opinions.

It seems to me the kids support one another well. The school works hard to downplay the stress and anxiety. And most parents talk about trying to reduce stress. But the kids definitely still seem to feel it. I suspect it comes from the fact that all the kids are smart, and lots of them are extremely smart and motivated and accomplished. So if you're a bright but unmotivated student who is hoping to do just enough to get by, you'll find yourself near the bottom of the grade. And if you're a student who is ambitious and wants to excel, you have to work pretty hard to feel like you're ahead of your peers. The solution of course if for each student to do their best individually, and not worry about how their peers are doing, but that advice is hard for anyone to follow.

Anonymous wrote:With the NCS relationship as tight as it is, StA is very different than a straight-up single-sex school. And the cathedral close makes for a campus that is orders-of-magnitude preferable to Sidwell.

Anonymous wrote:I have children at both.

My daughter attends Sidwell, boys attend STA.

Admin at STA is night and day stronger than at Sidwell. Sidwell's HOS is very focused on prestige and influence, and gives preferential treatment to the well-connected. So much for Quaker values.

STA boys are encouraged to be supportive of one another, character education is integrated into the curriculum, chapel services where boys lead and speak encourage them to think about values. Sidwell does character education, too, but it seems more focused on wokeness.

Both schools have bright, intense students. Both are high pressure, but STA has more moderating elements. Faculty are very engaged and caring at STA; they are invested in the success of every student. Sidwell teachers on the whole seem more detached. At Sidwell if a child needs help, it's their job to reach out to the teachers. At STA if a child needs help, the teacher might reach out to the child.

Sidwell students are supportive but they almost seem to glorify suffering and try to outdo each other in all-nighters and other all-out efforts to achieve. STA has highly competitive kids, too, but you're not supposed to show the sweat. The boys are expected to be self-deprecating about achievements and to help others. Bragging about grades is a no-no. Everyone excels in something and they are encouraged to appreciate each others' strengths.

There are some very conservative families at STA. There are some very woke families at Sidwell. The conservative families at STA are quiet about it. The woke families at Sidwell are very loud about it.

Both communities have many normal people who are welcoming. On the whole, politics and wokeness is less in-your-face at STA, because there's an effort to build community across political beliefs, which is not as true at Sidwell. There is more diversity of thought at STA, because there are few conservative families at Sidwell. I'm not sure how comfortable they are at STA either, as the majority of the school despite rumors to the contrary skews moderate and liberal. However, there is a careful restraint at STA around politics, with the exception of a few people on both sides.

College counseling is 1000X better at STA. Read some of the past threads on the DCUM issues with college counseling at Sidwell. It would never have been allowed to deteriorate to that extent at STA, because the school is better managed and the morale among faculty/admin is higher. I've heard STA teachers are the best paid among private schools in the DC area. Most of the teachers seem genuinely happy and that's reflected in their work with the students.

Both schools are excellent schools. As a parent I'm happier with STA. IMO it's better in terms of overall student experience, parent community, and administrative stability and strength. If you send your child to Sidwell, hire a private admissions counselor as soon as your child enters 9th grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Both schools have bright, intense students. Both are high pressure, but STA has more moderating elements. Faculty are very engaged and caring at STA; they are invested in the success of every student. Sidwell teachers on the whole seem more detached. At Sidwell if a child needs help, it's their job to reach out to the teachers. At STA if a child needs help, the teacher might reach out to the child.

The bolded is called self-advocacy. Students should have a sense of where they are and if they need help, to be proactive about it. Bosses and college professors won't coddle, the earlier the students learn it, the better.

And yes, the college counseling at Sidwell was a disaster a few years ago. They have 5 staffers now headed by a true pro, so it ended up at a better place because of it.

This self-advocacy line is BS that is just made up by commenters on this message board. It is not actually what Sidwell touts. And that should not be a surprise, because suggesting that 14 and 15 year old kids should need to beat down a teacher's door to get help or advice because that's the way it will be in college or a job is hardly a selling point for a high school. Instilling relationships where young adults see that authority figures can be invested in them and their success, and developing meaningful mentoring relationships with them, is actually a much better way for them to learn self-advocacy. Because you learn how to experience that type of relationship and how it can benefit you. And when the relationship doesn't exist, you know what to ask and advocate for. PP's comment about Sidwell teachers is a fair characterization when talking generally (there are some exceptions) and it is a glaring weakness of the school.

Disagree.

I have found the teachers very receptive to students approaching them. Generally speaking they are warm, and care greatly about their students. The point about the self-advocacy is spot on, it is messaged in parent back-to-school nights, it is articulated to the students. If families are not getting that message, I am not sure what to say. They really want students to reach out to faculty, ask questions, develop relationships etc.

The question is not whether teachers are receptive when students reach out (though I have seen many who are not). The question is whether students only get help when they "self-advocate" and reach out, and whether students who do not "self advocate" are allowed to struggle in silence or, perhaps, muddle along.

I have heard Deans Gross and Woods, among others, discuss the way they believe the school's mentoring and advising relationships should work. And their views and what they tell parents are not focused on fend-for-yourself self-advocacy. The problem is that the faculty is not willing to go along with being more proactive with students, for the reasons that the original poster described. This is not a selling point for the upper school, and the self-advocacy line is a concocted one.

Also, if you are the PP who talked about bosses won't "coddle" and self-advocacy is needed in the workplace? Do you actually function in today's workplace? Because I am an equity partner at a big downtown law firm. And the mentoring of young lawyers is a constant topic among my (successful and kind of intimidating) partners and friends at other firms. Very few partners take the approach any more that feedback or advice is only given to associates who seek it out, and of those who do, only the tremendously successful can get away with it for long.

Agree that the advisory/ mentoring system in the upper school, particularly, needs some work. What can we as parents do to push the school to work on this?

I don’t see efforts going very far. Sidwell gives its teachers a ton of autonomy, for better and worse—depending on the issue.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Both schools have bright, intense students. Both are high pressure, but STA has more moderating elements. Faculty are very engaged and caring at STA; they are invested in the success of every student. Sidwell teachers on the whole seem more detached. At Sidwell if a child needs help, it's their job to reach out to the teachers. At STA if a child needs help, the teacher might reach out to the child.

The bolded is called self-advocacy. Students should have a sense of where they are and if they need help, to be proactive about it. Bosses and college professors won't coddle, the earlier the students learn it, the better.

And yes, the college counseling at Sidwell was a disaster a few years ago. They have 5 staffers now headed by a true pro, so it ended up at a better place because of it.

This self-advocacy line is BS that is just made up by commenters on this message board. It is not actually what Sidwell touts. And that should not be a surprise, because suggesting that 14 and 15 year old kids should need to beat down a teacher's door to get help or advice because that's the way it will be in college or a job is hardly a selling point for a high school. Instilling relationships where young adults see that authority figures can be invested in them and their success, and developing meaningful mentoring relationships with them, is actually a much better way for them to learn self-advocacy. Because you learn how to experience that type of relationship and how it can benefit you. And when the relationship doesn't exist, you know what to ask and advocate for. PP's comment about Sidwell teachers is a fair characterization when talking generally (there are some exceptions) and it is a glaring weakness of the school.

Disagree.

I have found the teachers very receptive to students approaching them. Generally speaking they are warm, and care greatly about their students. The point about the self-advocacy is spot on, it is messaged in parent back-to-school nights, it is articulated to the students. If families are not getting that message, I am not sure what to say. They really want students to reach out to faculty, ask questions, develop relationships etc.